Charles I
Charles I (1600-1649) has the distinction of being the only English Monarch to have been executed for treason. He was the son of James I, the king that Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators attempted to blow up in 1605. As well as writing a witchfinder’s guidebook (Daemonologie), James also wrote two treatises on the Divine Right of Kings, the belief that kings were appointed by God and thus only answerable to Him, free to impose laws by Royal Prerogative. Charles I also believed in the Divine Right of Kings, but his numerous failings led many to question the doctrine.
Charles’s choice of wife, the Catholic Henrietta Maria of France, was widely unpopular, given England’s status as a Protestant country and nationalistic hatred of its enemies’ Roman faith. He also spent lavishly on his vast art collection, clothing, and entertainment which, alongside his military failings, led to clashes with Parliament. Charles dissolved Parliament in 1629 and ruled England as he pleased for 11 years, ending up facing bankruptcy because of his unchecked spending in 1640. Parliament was recalled, and eventually the English Civil War broke out in 1642. Defeated, Charles was captured, convicted of treason, and beheaded in 1649.
Charles appears as a ghost across England. Frequently he is seen with his Royal army (Cavaliers), a folk-memory of the turbulent Civil War. He also haunts two places in Oxford, where he had his garrison for a period. A story is told that he tried to borrow a book from the Bodleian Library, famously a non-lending establishment, but was simply told that ‘no one is allowed to take books from the library’. His phantom still walks the Upper Reading Room, clutching a book. He is also said to play bowls with his own head in St John’s College Library.
The Bodleian ghost story is especially interesting, as it neatly predicts the circumstances of Charles’s trial and lampoons his pompous adherence to the Divine Right of Kings. Asking to borrow the book suggests he assumed that, as king, he was above the laws for other men. The librarian’s placid response mirrors his trial, at which he was tried under his commoner’s name, Charles Stuart. The ghastly story of Charles’s head-bowling at St John’s (at the time a fiercely-Royalist establishment) both mocks the king for his defeat and reminds the college of its poor judgement in backing such a strutting fool.
Much like the American Civil War (see below), the traumatic years of the English Civil War have left their mark on ghost-lore. The 1642 Battle of Edgehill, the first battle of the Civil War, was a clash between 30, 000 soldiers. 1000 men were killed, with a further 3000 grievously wounded. Barely two months later, ghostly warriors were seen fighting again in the sky above the battlefield by terrified shepherds. The sound of whinnying horses, clashing armour, and moribund men are still heard at the battlefield to this day. The phantom battle represents a traumatic wound in the nation’s memory.